


Hart Trouble

by deathwailart



Series: Eimhir Lavellan [4]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Banter, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Female Friendship, Relationship Discussions, Spoilers, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 03:47:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2836931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An incident involving two of the hart mounts leads to Eimhir having to bunk down in the barn with Blackwall after deciding his fate when they're figuring out where they are with one another.  Set before <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2799725">Taking In Strays</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hart Trouble

"Only you would manage to have a mount that's up the duff," Sera crows as Eimhir lounges in the warmth of the window seat, both of them having given up the battle for space. "'Sides, not that I was looking but don't antlers usually mean it's a male?"  
  
"Not with halla and some hart, it just depends. I'd prefer knowing who got her pregnant though."  
  
"Going to march them down the aisle?"  
  
"No, I'll just judge him before the court."  
  
Sera cackles and Eimhir has to grab her so she doesn't fall and clatter into the table because the table doesn't really sit right after the last time that happened. "I wanna be there when you find out, wanna see the look on Josie's face, can you imagine?"  
  
"I wish you'd been there for the whole goat thing with the Avvar, I thought she was taking the piss at first."  
  
"So what does Ser Broodybeard make of it?"  
  
"I'm stealing his bed –"  
  
"So that's where they got it from huh? You two were bothering the harts not the horses."  
  
Eimhir can feel herself flush because well, she does deserve that. "I'm stealing his bed to sleep in before I have to actually sleep in the stable. Dennet's a good horse master but a hart is closer to a halla than a horse, I've helped out before."  
  
Sera shudders and well, Eimhir can't blame her because it's pretty disgusting but she loves all her hart even if she's pretty sure it's Roan who got her newest girl pregnant, he's got that look about him and she really could throttle him.  
  
"You and him though, you're good right? Because I like him but I like you too and I mean that was a piece of work y'know? You were really gone for him and now..."  
  
"We're getting better. Taking it slowly."  
  
"You're stealing his bed."  
  
"It's a hay loft and we're adults."  
  
"Well I'll be watching."  
  
"Sure you want to see his arse?"  
  
"Maybe I can convince Cullen too, he'd have a right good view." Eimhir stays silent on how easily Cullen turns bright red because she likes him and she really does need a war strategist and he might actually die of embarrassment. As interesting as it might make things, she's never going to let that one slip to Sera. There's just too much at stake.  Sera's laughing anyway, moving onto her knees to peer out the window and then she's waving Eimhir to join her. "Look, Cassandra's going to pummel some poor sap into the dirt. Does things to me, watching her crush someone."  
  
"Right? I wonder if I could convince her and Cullen to spar. For morale." She might miss the days when Blackwall was the one sparring with Cassandra but she understands why Cassandra feels the way she does about the revelations.  
  
"Does that really work? Saying it's for morale."  
  
"If you say it enough times in a serious voice then more than you'd think."  
  
"Oh! I'll need to try that. How's it go?"  
  
Eimhir clears her throat and folds her arms, tilting her chin up. "It's for morale, I care about our people. Oh and you need to stare down whoever else it is. Like serious staring down. Don't look away first. It doesn't always work though, apparently a bust of Cassandra rendered in loving detail doesn't count for morale."  
  
Sera is just as outraged as Eimhir regarding that but watching Cassandra sparring definitely makes up for it and when Eimhir does tear herself away to actually get on with her duties, she makes sure to just bump into Cassandra with something to drink. Because she cares about her friends.  
  
And because Sera makes a face and flips her off from the window. It's always the little things after all.  
  
It's strange to have a little time in Skyhold to get things together, Morrigan and her son present and Eimhir likes the boy even if he's definitely more than a little on the odd side. Not badly exactly but it's a bit disconcerting to talk to him for any length of time. Everyone wants to be ready for what comes next and it's been weeks of missives flying back and forth, long meetings at the war table, recruiting agents, filling requisitions. Honestly, she's glad of it, ever since the truth about Blackwall came out she's wanted to be busy because it means she has other things to think about. She needed time to sort through it because it was a lot to take in and it still is and going out to hunt demons or Freemen is better than moping or thinking about it constantly. It's certainly better than the night they got back to Skyhold after she saw him in the cells and she got blindingly drunk. It really bodes ill that no one has told her just how much of a mess she was but she's sure she cried and she's fairly confident she threw up. Perhaps on someone. Or somewhere important. She definitely remembers Varric sighing and muttering something about Hawke but right now she still feels like she needs to not bring up Hawke, not after that overheard conversation about Weisshaupt between the dwarf and Dorian.  
  
Maybe it's good for them that they're finally sitting down and talking, spending time with one another. She loves him. She did try, even just on that march back to Skyhold and in the waiting for him to be brought before her for judgement, to harden her heart but it made her miserable. Emotions don't work like that. She couldn't just stop loving him and caring about him but her trust has never been easily given and it's still something they're working on. She wants to make it work but it's balancing the time she needs against time they might not have.  
  
Her hand still glows. Rifts still appear. They're getting close to the end now but she can't predict the future.  
  
She ends up at the stables, nodding to a few folk who see her all the time as she approaches her hart and sighs, folding her arm and scowling at Roan.  
  
"If that fawn has even a _hint_ of red-" She's cut off by the time she's nose to nose with the beast because he licks her face and well, she can't stay annoyed with him, not really.  "Big useless lump, you're lucky I love you and think you're a handsome beast." There's a snort that's definitely _not_ from an animal and she looks over her shoulder. Blackwall hasn't turned but he's working away at that wooden griffin so she knows he heard her. "Jealous?" She asks, moving to pet the Royal Sixteen, Orla, gently, smiling when she presses her face into her hands.  
  
"Might be," he replies, his back still to her and she pats the hart one last time before she steps into the barn proper.  
  
"Remember what I told you back in Haven? I might still need you for that." It's only when the words leave her mouth that she realises how they might sound, that the joke might not come off like one and even if it does, that it might not be appreciated and she bites her lip.  
  
"Not a Grey Warden, you know that." The 'not really, not anymore' doesn't need to be said, it's a discussion they had after she made her decision, something that'll come up another time when they can actually deal with the future.  She could have handed him over, he would have accepted it and lived a life but she gave him freedom.  At least they've spared those they could and allowed them to remain, at least he can say that he has helped them by handing over the history they've found but as for what's next?  It's one of those nebulous future things they dance around and honestly, she doesn't want to think about it much at all. She knows enough to know that she might lose him even if she thinks it's what he wanted.  Perhaps still chance to be what the original Blackwall wanted him to be - a man with the chance to keep doing good.  
  
"Ir abelas," she mutters and he turns at last so she's quick to summon a smile. "I shouldn't have-"  
  
"No it's-" he says at the same time and they can both laugh at least, Eimhir stealing the chair from by the fire to drag over to where he's working, elbows on her thighs, chin in her hands.  
  
"How's she been?" She asks after the silence drags on because they spend so much time apologising lately and she hates it, hates the silences they never had, the way she trips over her words because she has to overthink and she's not good at that. She doesn't just open her mouth and blurt out whatever she likes without a thought, she didn't do that even before all she learned – reluctantly at times, it has to be said – since joining the inquisition but it was easy, being around him. Flirting and flattery, just the right amount of poking and prodding, getting under his skin with jokes.  
  
"Good, seems a bit more restless lately, if I'm any judge."  
  
"She's got maybe a week, day or two more? I'm really going to kill Roan."  
  
"You won't. You're good to the peo- things you love."  
  
There's a hint of red at his cheeks as he turns back to working on the griffin and she taps her feet, restless. Before when she came down here it was to talk, yes, but she could steal him away from his work and let him crowd her up against the wall of the stables. For all that he's a man she found wandering in the wilds with his unkempt hair and beard, he was always gentle unless she wanted otherwise, one big hand cupping her face as she clutched his shirt. They've barely touched since she kissed him in the hall before everyone and it's all she can think about sometimes. How cold the shackles were beneath her fingers. How ragged his voice was. The look in his eyes.  
  
He didn't want her to save him and she keeps coming back to it because for all that she's glad she did it because she wasn't going to let them kill him – even if she'd stayed angry and hadn't wanted to stay with him she would have wanted him back, would have given him a chance to do good because she's been trying to do that ever since she took charge of the inquisition – it's still something that keeps her awake. And she knows that means they need to really talk it through but she has no idea how to do it tactfully and trying to sound Josephine out on how her opinion had changed (because if there's someone who knows how to bring up anything with grace and tact, it's Josephine) she hadn't gotten anywhere. And she understands but still. If she makes a mess of this, it's going to hurt both of them and she can handle hurt, she's young or younger than him anyway but he's shouldered his burden for so long that she doesn't want to add to it, even by accident.  
  
It just means that every conversation stops and starts, neither sure what to say and she's never been like that. Even her and Vivienne can talk more easily and she's never sure if Vivienne actually likes her or merely tolerates her. Eimhir will never be good at the game – she charmed those at the ball by the skin of her teeth and if they hadn't been worried about a civil war and everything else, she wouldn't stand a chance, not without more coaching from Leliana and Josephine. So she sighs quietly then leans over to grab a block of wood and slips her knife from her belt and starts carving with no real thought, the sort of thing she did when patrols were slow or if she had to stay awake all night to keep watch. She understands keeping hands busy and sometimes there aren't words to say, not the time or the place, perhaps not even needed as much as she might want to say them because ever since she found herself in this position, there have been moments where all she wants is silence, a hand on her shoulder or at her back. Sometimes she goes to Bull or Varric for drinks and cards, sometimes she talks to Cole or Solas about things she'll never fully understand. Other times she lets Dorian explain Tevinter society to her in more detail or allows him to have someone there when he's testing some theory from his research, most of which flies over her head but she's always loved watching how animated people are when they're talking about something they care about. But sometimes she just wants a steady hand. Cassandra who helped her up and who knows how good solitude feels. Or Blackwall who is _there_ , radiating belief. It's warm at least in the barn and restful sleep has been absent more and more lately, too many worries to keep her up, chasing thoughts like wild halla and she sets down her knife before she cuts her thumb off, settling comfortably in her chair as she listens to Blackwall humming under his breath as he works.  
  
It's one of the songs she sings, usually when she's trying to coax a grumpy hart into suffering a thorough grooming, but it's different to hear it in his low voice, a hum as he carefully carves little feathers, relaxed in a way she doubts the others see. Especially not now. One day though, she wants them to all be able to sit for one day and be civil, no hostility, guarded or otherwise. She can dream after all. Speaking of which, sleep sounds good and she can't be bothered moving, stretching her legs out because the first thing she learned as a young hunter was to figure out the most comfortable position no matter where she happened to be and sleep when she could. After all, she's been sleeping up in the loft with Blackwall for a while now and soon enough she'll be curled up in the stable proper with a pregnant hart, she needs to just get used to it and enjoy her bed all the more when she can return to it. It's with that thought that she finally falls asleep, planning for an hour at the most, just enough to take the edge off her exhaustion.  
  
She wakes hours later, disoriented with a blanket tucked around her, nestled close to the fire and she groans, making a face at how her head feels as though it's full of wet sand. It's dark outside and she blinks, rubbing her eyes and looking around until she sees Blackwall feeding Roan and she yawns. It's freezing when she squirms out of the blanket – too much living indoors, she's getting soft – to join him.  
  
"You shouldn't spoil him, I'm very sure he was the one who was up to no good."  
  
"Might be the end of the world, it's only expected that there are at least a few unplanned babies."  
  
"Well no more." She lightly hits him on the nose with a finger, not that her scolding ever does much good with Roan. "Have you eaten? I'm _starving_."  
  
"You and Sera, where do either of you put all that food?"  
  
"At least I've got my glowing green hand to blame for it."  
  
"True enough. And no, I haven't eaten, not yet."  
  
"Can you finish with them? The kitchen always gives me extra."  
  
"I'm sure that's an abuse of your power."  
  
"No," she calls over her shoulder, "requisitioning cake falls under that, Sera and I decided!"

* * *

  
It's some sort of soup for dinner which means they're using up leftovers but the bread is freshly baked and still warm when she carefully makes her way down the steps to the barn with a tray in her hands, Blackwall clearing off the worktable and dragging their chairs over. It's still strange, the variety of food they have here compared to when she still lived with her clan but she has to admit that she likes it and doesn't always miss having to race after deer or work with fumbling numb fingers to set snares. She says as much to Blackwall who nods and sighs because he knows that sort of life although he's already admitted that it's easier for a human to buy what he needs and get hold of it compared to an elf, especially one of the Dalish. She practically inhales her meal because she wasn't joking when she said she was starving and he raises an eyebrow at her.  
  
"What?" She asks, mopping up the last of her soup with the bread, full and warm, both good things for the long cold night ahead.  
  
"You sure that mark of yours isn't doing anything more to you?"  
  
"Maybe? I don't really know," she admits, glancing down at the hand in question, the light faint but it's still glowing and it's still her hand but sometimes she doesn't want to look at it. "I could maybe ask Solas, I mean he did ask if the mark had changed me but I don't think 'well I'm eating like a starved dog' counts. I'm always running around, more than I did at home, there were patrols, a lot of sitting around, nowhere near as much fighting."  
  
"So long as you don't fade away to a shadow."  
  
"I requisition cake, there's absolutely no danger of that, trust me."  
  
"I'd like the story behind that."  
  
"It's not that interesting. I went down to steal a cake for Sera because we were a bit drunk and you remember, Josie and the fancy cakes?" He nods, grinning so she continues. "Well I went to do that and got told they were for people – I thought the staff would all have been asleep when I got there – so I just said I had to requisition it and every so often I just appear and requisition cake."  
  
"Is that what the two of you do up there?"  
  
"Sometimes we play cards. Sometimes we play knife games or darts. Most of the time we watch Cassandra sparring with people and beating lumps out of them."  
  
"Oh inquisitor, if only the people knew."  
  
"Don't tell Varric. Don't you _dare_ tell Varric."  
  
"Or what?"  
  
"I'll shave you. Elves don't grow beards so it might end very badly for you." He holds up his hands in surrender and she laughs, swinging a foot out under the table to kick him lightly in the shin but all he does is move so she can rest her ankles on his knee, legs just long enough so it's comfortable and she smiles. "Don't worry, I like the beard."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"It might need a bit of a trim but it suits you. And I like it."  
  
When first she met him, she never thought she'd use the word bashful to describe him but it's the only word that comes to mind when he smiles then looks away quickly, fishing something out of his pocket to pass over to her.  
  
"You dropped this earlier, thought you might want it back." She takes it with a murmur of thanks, running her fingers over the features she started to pick out, eyes and the wicked point of a beak. "Did you teach yourself?"  
  
"The hunter who taught me did, patrols are dull. Endless. Mud between your toes and most of the time there's a fat lot of nothing. If you're stationed then you're just...there. Sitting or standing. I think I would've driven her mad if she hadn't taught me to do something." She smoothes her thumb down to the end of the beak and sets the carving on the table, turning it to face him. "It's a hawk. Or it will be. Maybe. I had so many I'd start and never get around to finishing, they were just things to do and it always meant I had dry wood for a fire."  
  
"I thought it was either that or an owl."  
  
"Hawks are important to Andruil."  
  
"That's one of your gods isn't it? The one to do with hunting, you and Solas were talking about it once."  
  
"I think you mean almost arguing."  
  
"Well I wasn't going to say, the two of you didn't need human input then."  
  
She laughs and gets to her feet, moving to sit by the fire and Blackwall joins her, picking up the blanket from earlier to drape over her shoulders again and when he moves to sit across from her, she takes his hand until he ends up next to her so she can rest her head on his shoulder. "I like Solas but my people and our ways, our history? They're important to me. He could at least pretend to be polite sometimes, treat others as you want to be treated goes an awful long way, at least it did with my clan."  
  
"It's a good way to look at things, I always wonder how much better we'd get on if we could all do that. If we could try but..."  
  
"But we're people and people are messy and complicated, even the ones that try to be anything but." Sighing, she shakes her head and passes the carving from palm to palm.  "But with the people we care about, we see past it."  
  
He's quiet and she wants to look up but doesn't, instead letting him pull her as close as he dares. "And you..." His voice is soft enough before he trails off so she takes his hand in hers, running her thumb over his knuckles.  
  
"I love you. I won't pretend I wasn't hurt when I found out, I was angry, I felt betrayed. I'm not going to lie to you about that because I don't think it'll do either of us any good. No one is more aware of what you did than you but everything you've done since? You've worked hard to make it right."  
  
"But you can't put something like that right," he interrupts and she nods because there's no getting around that fact.  
  
"No, but you can stop trying. You could've turned into a lot of things. Isn't that what your Chantry says the Maker does at the end of the day? Judges you?"  
  
"What do your gods do?"  
  
"Once a hunter shot a hawk and those are sacred to Andruil so when Ghilan'nain saw, she called for Andruil to curse him so that he couldn't hunt again, couldn't kill another living creature. He was filled with shame and he swore he would repay the curse so he found Ghilan'nain, blinded her, bound her but thanks to the curse, he was unable to kill her so he left her to die. Ghilan'nain prayed to the gods – she was a mortal woman then – and Andruil sent hares to chew her loose but blind as she was, she couldn't find her way back. So Andruil turned her into the first halla. My gods might not be the best stories for something like this."  
  
"It's just...it's hard," he says at long last, his voice choked. "Knowing that I still have a place in your life and here, that you can love so freely, forgive so deeply. You know who I am and who I was. But you're still here. It'll take time for me to accept it, I might not get all the way there."  
  
"That's why I thought we should take our time, get to know one another again now that it's all out there in the open. I'm not imagining that it's going to be all sunshine and rainbows," that at least gets a smile from him, "but I know how I feel. And you're worthy. And you're enough. You are _more_ than enough. I just want you to know that."  
  
"I will never know what I did to deserve you," he mumbles and she lets him pull her close, her arms around him as he kisses the top of her head. She doesn't know how long they spend like that but something eases, some horrible knot between her shoulders and the weight in her stomach seems a little less after that when they finally make their way upstairs. He falls asleep first and she finally gets to see the furrow in his brow disappear, running her fingers through his hair as she listens to the wind, the quiet murmurs from below because Skyhold never sleeps, not really, and his slow, steady breathing.  
  
One day she'll get him out of this barn, into a real bed with a proper roof and windows but for now, it's enough.

* * *

  
A week later and Orla is restless, unable to settle as Eimhir sits on a little stool crammed into the corner of her stall, stinking of straw and deer, tired and stiff. Roan lets out a sad grunt from his stall, peering over into the one Eimhir is hunkered in. She shushes him, not wanting to wake anyone just yet because that might come later. Halla are quiet when they labour but a hart might not be and there's probably enough eye rolling about all of this as it is, still, she's excited even if it's just because she'll get to sleep in her own bed once she's sure Orla and the fawn will be healthy.  
  
"This is your fault, try this again and snip snip," she threatens, peering up. Roan just snorts and she sighs, digging into her pocket for a handful of food that he gobbles up, lips tickling her palm. "You're lucky I love all my children, no matter what they get up to." There's a soft chuckle from outside and she gets to her feet – a bad decision because her legs are numb and she lurches awkwardly – to swing the barn door open, shushing Orla at her side. "Did we wake you?"  
  
Blackwall nods but doesn't look annoyed about it, peering inside as Orla raises her head to sniff at him. "I got used to you getting up to check on her every few hours since you started staying down here with me. I know what it's like, to worry about your mount like you do."  
  
"You must have had a horse, back when you were a chevalier." She's heard about them more than she's seen them, stories in Val Royeaux and around the Dirth but she hasn't really seen them much.  
  
"I had a beauty back then," he tells her, moving to pet Roan who is happy for the attention that he feels he's missing out on, Eimhir counts herself fortunate that the other mounts aren't nearly so childish and petulant compared to him. The horse master of course looks after all the mounts but everyone has a favourite that they prefer, Eimhir herself loving and riding only the various hart she has collected but Roan and Orla are just that little bit special above all others. "She was an Orlesian Courser, overbred like all noble things are but I liked her spirit. She'd give you a nip if you tried to push her but she knew when she had to keep going just a bit longer."  
  
"Did you have her when-"  
  
"No," he cuts her quiet question off, patting Roan one last time before he comes to join Eimhir, taking a seat outside the open door, leaning against it to stop it from banging closed. "Wasn't long before that but she lost her footing in a rabbit hole, broke her leg."  
  
She winces, remembering halla who've suffered the same fate. "It's a kindness to let them go. Not that it makes it any easier but there's nothing to be done."  
  
"Not even with mages?"  
  
"If they're young then sometimes you can nurse them through it but they're never what they should be. Even though we respect all life and halla above the rest, it's wrong to let them suffer. Why do you think I either get off and walk or don't bother with a mount a lot of places? I don't want any of them to get hurt."  
  
"You could always ride one of those giant overgrown nugs," he suggests and laughs at the look of horror on her face.  
  
"I'm with Dorian – normal nugs have awful feet. The big ones-" She shudders violently enough that Orla nuzzles close, making a plaintive noise until Eimhir nuzzles her right back, catching a glimpse of Blackwall looking at them so fondly that she feels her face heat.  
  
It's almost dawn by the time Orla actually starts to strain and labour, Eimhir rolling her sleeves up and sending Blackwall off to the kitchens for the hot water they've been asked to prepare for her, waking Dennet on the way because Eimhir promised she'd wake him for this. It's messy but easy enough to clean up although she'll make sure to exaggerate it for Sera's sake after she's bathed and slept. For now she's content to have scrubbed and at least changed, a servant taking her clothes away to be washed as she watches a red – her and Roan will be having a _talk_ once she's more awake and able to tell off an amorous red hart properly – fawn take tottering steps, impossibly long spindly legs rendering it the most awkward creature she has ever seen and thus the most adorable. She settles against Blackwall, yawning and tucking her face against his neck. He strokes her hair and along the shell of her ear until she's almost boneless against him and he has to half carry her up the stairs.  
  
At least this time when she wakes up in the barn after he takes her up to bed she's fully clothed (in one of his borrowed shirts that he might not get back now) and he's next to her, head against her shoulder and an arm around her waist as he snores quietly. Definitely a real bed soon, and a fire. But she has nowhere to be quite yet and Orla seemed to know what she was doing with her new baby, another hour or two and she'll go find everyone to introduce them to the newest member of the inquisition and start taking naming suggestions.

**Author's Note:**

> So in my headcanon the stables are much bigger than in the game and pretty much everyone has preferred mounts (and this is true for all my inquisitors) and Eimhir only ever rides harts but pretends she doesn't play favourites. Except she does with Roan and Orla. Cole's favourite is probably the bog unicorn, Sera absolutely takes any of the nuggalopes for joyrides around Skyhold and Bull probably loves all the dracolisks. (Just imagine the Chargers riding into battle on the closest thing to a dragon okay.)
> 
> And I apologise for a terrible pun for a title but I gave up trying to think of a better one.


End file.
